The Irish President says he does not believe it is dangerous to commemorate the centenary of the 1916 Easter Rising against British rule in Ireland.

Michael D Higgins told Sky News it is "the most useless thing to effect some kind of amnesia" in relation to the events of the past.

"I remember when I became President first, going to Northern Ireland, preparing my speeches and I would regard it as amoral to actually say to somebody you must put it all behind you," he said.

"How can you if you have a member of your family in a wheelchair or somebody has lost a limb or a loved one has been murdered or whatever?

"If you are involved in the ethics of memory, you have to transact it so therefore, you recognise it and you look at that complexity and that is when you must be open to the different narratives which must be placed side by side."

The British army, which included 200,000 Irishmen, was entrenched in World War One and taking heavy losses across Europe, when it found itself dealing with a five-day uprising back in Ireland.

"If they had lasted near enough to the week, it is recognised as a revolution but what it is a strike against empire," said the Head of State.

"So let us all be honest, let us simply say it is from this moment that the movement towards independence gathers force."

Speaking at his official residence in Dublin, the President said the Easter Rising had to be viewed within the wider historical, political and social context.

"To understand the Rising and the response to it, you have to understand more than the nationalist tendencies... maybe most challenging is to discuss the mind of empire," he said.

"It is the character of the response to the Rising, the executions, the imprisonment, the huge building up of scale to crush the Rising."

President Higgins recalled the significance of his historic state visit to the UK two years ago and the Queen’s momentous visit to Ireland in 2011.

"Her Majesty had very clearly in her visit to Ireland struck a chord with the recognition that respecting this complexity and difference is so important so that our present is not in fact carrying any legacies of bitterness and so the future, we can embrace it together," he said.